I've been to Long Beach a few times, fam...i wasnt impressed. Stop watching Boyz in da Hood and shit and fall back...per capita, hardly any city on the map sees as many murders as Baltimore. I'd walk down any fucking street in the country because i've seen it all and did it all.

Bottom line...most of yall are young cats from the burbs..when i was yalls age, i would have NEVER spent this much fucking time on the internet.

so then he should kno all about j. cole and where hes repping...

a no-where town called fayetteville

what exactly does hood credibility have to do with any of this anyway....

Rakim is from Long Island in New York..

does he get no street credibility?..

people go through their own struggle everywhere, where you're from is completely irrelevant.

My homies from D.C...said it was crazy there but he lives in Lousiville (KY) (as of now juss goin back n forth)..which used to be the #1 murder capital of the US(Louisville<)...both are bad...so id say baltimores no different than dc! BUT LOUISVILLE IS MY SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!:D

EXACTLY!!!!!!!! Bet the shit I been through is nuttin compared to most of these so called "Ghetto Mufuckas From the "BIG" City"

I cant say thats a good look but...

Get that money homie. Congrats to dat guy.

the more i look at this argument...the more i see both sides..

real hip hop came from the streets, and damn near every one of the legends of hip hop came from the hood, so there's got to be some sort of correlation there. to be honest, street cred does play a role in the music i listen to.

i like CNN and Mobb Deep because i've been through what they've gone through and i can relate to the shit they talk about.

but i also listen to Kanye West...i guess its different...idk

Dudes don't understand this is the type of shit I do research about and compute probabilities, confidence intervals, etc. (like actuaries) ... Statistically he has like a .0001% chance of gettin on from Syracuse let a lone gettin a major record deal hahaha. Numbers don't lie. Do you know how many others dudes have came before him and tried to get on? Demographics is the name of the game folks. It does affect your future especially in America, otherwise the "electoral college" system would be changed ...

you do understand that you've been slowly exposing your ignorance for a while now, right?

there can be no statistical analysis on something like this. looking at which artists have made it big and where they are from has no STATISTICAL relation to the probability of where the next artist will be from.

granted, a person from a larger city is more likely to gain exposure more easily, and have connections...but the fact is...blowing up is liking popping corn...no one can predict the next kernel to pop...

for you to lay some sort of mathematical claim on this is totally foolish. PLENTY of people who you THINK are from 'the hood' only claim it, or lived there shortly...